The president has requested N21.9 billion from the National Assembly for the “building of a presidential wing at the State House Medical Center ” in 2022. Since 2020, the project has received N1.4 billion, bringing its total funding to N23.3 billion by next year.

The N16.31 trillion budget passed the second reading in the Senate on Wednesday, despite lawmakers’ complaints that the country’s budgets are increasingly having less impact on citizens, and that they have consistently prioritized vague and non-critical projects over key items like education, healthcare, and job creation.

“We must change our implementation strategy and our budget system so that Nigerians can benefit from this annual ritual called budget,” said Abba Moro, PDP senator from Benue State.

“We must try as much as possible to block the leakages in our economy so that we can conserve funds for the development of our infrastructure. I don’t know the place of education in this budget yet we want to enthrone a vibrant population in our country.

“Poverty is on the rise. Several programs have been churned out by this administration in all our budgets. We must change our budget system. The envelope system is a system that duplicates and continues to do one thing all over and over again and we will not expect a new result,” Mr. Moro, a former Minister of Interior, said.

The massive proposal for a “presidential wing” is the latest example of how successive governments have continued to commit scarce resources to projects with limited value because they are aimed at providing services to a few individuals – in this case, the president, vice president, and their families – at the expense of critical projects that should benefit millions of Nigerians.

The State House Clinic has been a lure for bloated budgetary expenditures for years, yet its efficiency has remained subpar. In 2017, Aisha Buhari, the first lady, said the hospital was poorly run despite billions of dollars invested over the years, and her daughter, Zahra, said the institution was unable to provide “paracetamol”.

“I called the Aso Clinic to find out if they have an X-Ray machine, they said it’s not working. In the end, I had to go to a hospital-owned and operated by foreigners 100 percent,” Mrs. Buhari said at the time.

“There is a budget for the hospital and if you go there now, you will see several constructions going on but they don’t have a single syringe there. What is the purpose of the buildings if there is no equipment there to work with?

“You can imagine what happens across the states to governors wives if this will happen to me in Abuja.”

The Aso Rock Clinic’s management blamed the inadequate services on lack of funding, claiming that the president had been updated on the hospital’s situation. Officials told Lawmakers investigating the situation at the time that the amount released for the hospital’s operation frequently fell short of the figure allowed in the budget, a common problem exacerbated by low federal revenue.

They said that in 2018, the entire release for the clinic’s overhead spending was N331.7 million, which was 99.9% of the approved figure, but only N231.9 million was made available for capital projects, which was just 33.2 percent of what should have been.

This year’s developments reveal that the facility has remained dysfunctional for years. Since taking office, Mr. Buhari has continued to spend public funds on international medical travels, preferring to be treated in the United Kingdom. His most recent medical journey was in July, just before Nigerian physicians went on strike for an indeterminate period, paralyzing the health sector for weeks.

The president selected a site for the development of a new presidential wing at the State House Clinic in August this year, after authorizing the restriction of public access to the State House Clinic in 2020.

It was unclear whether Mr. Buhari would stop going to the UK for medical treatment and instead use the new facility.

Umar Tijjani, the State House’s permanent secretary, claimed in August that the “state-of-the-art clinic” would primarily serve the president, vice president, and their families, as well as other government officials. The project, he claims, will be completed within the next two years, before the end of the Buhari administration.

He reiterated calls for increased financing, claiming that just N5.083 billion of the N8.699 billion earmarked for State House in the 2018 fiscal year was released. N2 billion is budgeted for 2019 out of a total of N6.955 billion.

He did admit, however, that financing increased in 2020, and the entire approved amount for that year – N4.88 billion – was released, indicating that the facility’s difficulties went beyond a shortage of funds.

The most significant intervention required by the State House, according to Mr. Tijjani, was the design and construction of the presidential wing at the State House clinic.

“And by the time this administration leaves office, we’ll have the presidential wing of the State House Clinic up and running,” he told senators who paid a visit to the facility.

“For now, we have already started in earnest with activities that are required for the construction, we have received the necessary approvals. We have received no objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement. We have already directed the contractor because he’s going to come in the form of a turnkey project, to mobilize and take over the site.”

If the National Assembly approves the project, it will cost N21.9 billion in 2022. In 2021, it received N1.064 billion, and in 2020, it received N416.7 million.

The sum for 2022 is N2.7 billion higher than the overall capital budget for the country’s 14 teaching hospitals.

Capital budgets are for new and ongoing projects, as opposed to recurrent budgets, which are for administrative (overhead) and staff costs.

The sums suggested for existing and new projects in the following hospitals, according to the proposed budget, are listed below. They total N19.17 billion, which is less than the capital allocation for the State House Clinic’s presidential wing.